


you could be my new religion

by dropofrum (95echelon)



Series: dropofrum sampler [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AND NOBODY DIED, Alternate Universe - Rhaegar won, F/M, FLUFF. ALL THE FLUFF., Kid Fic, Pre-Series, and each of those attempts are better, self-indulgent fluff that's what, this exact fic has been written at least 402 times before, what even is the point of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/95echelon/pseuds/dropofrum
Summary: Sansa growled under her breath, stomping away, and briefly daydreamed about conking JaehaerysbloodyTargaryen in his stupid head.





	you could be my new religion

Sansa remembers the boy who had come to Winterfell the first time Aunt Lyanna - well, alright,  _Queen_ Lyanna - had visited, eight years before the King came to Winterfell. Prince Jaehaerys was dark-haired and violet-eyed, and by the gods, he had been the grumpiest little boy she had ever seen. For the first whole week he had been at Winterfell, Sansa had genuinely believed Jaehaerys didn't actually know how to smile. She had tried to teach him how, although not in so many words. Mostly, she had tried smiling at him, bright, gummy smiles that crinkled up her eyes, and dimpled her cheeks. But the stupid Prince only got scowlier every time she tried, and by the end of the first week, Sansa had quite thoroughly given up. 

Who needed princes anyway? 

Sansa would marry a nice lord like Mother had, someone who smiled like Father, gentle and kind and handsome, and they'd have lots of pretty babies, and she would be happy forever and _ever_. So _there._

And then she walked in on him and Robb and Arya in the training yard, where the boys were teaching Arya how to shoot her bow - _teaching her!_ She was a _girl,_ Seven help him, Mother was going hide Robb's bottom black for this - and when Arya hit the bullseye, Prince Jaehaerys chuckled, and rubbed the top of her head, exchanging a bright, open grin with Robb. 

So he _could_ smile, the vile brat. He just didn't smile at _her._

Sansa growled under her breath, stomping away, and briefly daydreamed about conking Jaehaerys bloody Targaryen in his stupid head. 

* * *

 

 

"Arya..." Sansa asked carefully, over breakfast the next day. "Do you like Jaehaerys?"

Arya frowned up at her. "Who?"

Sansa blinked. "The prince. How many Jaehaerys-es do _you_ know?"

"Oh, seven hells, Sansa," Arya muttered, rolling her eyes, and went back to savagely attacking her porridge. "No one calls him _Jaehaerys."_

" _Mother_ calls him Jaehaerys," Sansa pointed out, offended. 

Arya made a rude little sound before gulping down her milk, and wiping away her white mustache with the back of her hand. " _Mother_ hasn't spoken to him once since he got here. Just call him Jon, alright? He prefers Jon."

Sansa scowled. " _'Jon'?!_ What kind of princely name is _Jon?"_

"The kind of name I answer to, my lady," a new voice retorts from behind her, drier than dust, and Sansa nearly sprains her neck whipping around to see a dour-faced Jae- _Jon_ Targaryen staring at her, his posture relaxed, dark curls falling into his eyes, violet eyes flashing with contempt. 

Rotten little- _Ugh_. If this is what princes are like, Arya is welcome to them _all._

* * *

 

##### Eight Years Later

"The king is coming to Winterfell. The king and _both_ the queens, and the princes and princesses, and even some of the Kingsguard."

Jeyne frowned at Sansa, her needle pausing over the muslin. "What for? Why do they _all_ need to come?"

Sansa smiled, a sweet, modest smile that made her eyes shine, ducking her gaze down to focus on her embroidery, her steady, delicate crimson stitches outlining the three heads of a dragon. "Mother says it might be to ask Father for my hand. Prince Aegon just turned one-and-twenty."

Jeyne gasped, her stitching ring clattering out of her hands. "Prince Ae- But he's the heir to the Throne!"

Sansa grinned, a quick little flash of teeth before she blushed and looked away. "And," Jeyne continued, in that same breathless, awestruck tone, "if you marry him..."

Sansa nodded, and whispered, joy bubbling in her heart like a cask of sparkling Dornish champagne, "Then I shall be Queen."

* * *

 

 

"I just saw Jon! His horse is _huge_!" Bran reports, panting and red-cheeked, plonking himself between a snickering Robb and Theon, as they await the royal party. He's been climbing the walls again, the little idiot. One of these days... Gods, why are boys so stupid?

Sansa bends down to him, brushing his hair out of his face and tugging his jerkin straight. "And Aegon?" she asks, fighting a blush, and ignoring Arya's exaggerated snort. "Did you see him too?"

Bran frowns, trying to recall the enormous party of carriages and carts and soldiers and outriders that made up the entourage. "I don't think so?"

"Maybe he changed his mind and stayed in King's Landing," Arya needles, grinning, as Sansa's smile falters. "Maybe he wants to marry his sister, Rhaenys. Or his aunt, Daenerys. They're both  _verrry_ pretty, you know. Everyone says so."

Sansa scowls at her bratty sister, curbing the urge to whack her upside the head. _No one_ is going to ruin today for her. "Shut _up,_ Arya. I'm sure he was just riding in one the carriages," she retorts, drawing herself to her full, fairly impressive height. 

But everyone knows Aegon is one of the finest riders in the capitol. He wouldn't arrive in a _carriage_. 

Sansa smiles blandly, staring straight ahead, hiding her trembling hands in the folds of her skirt, and tries to control the stuttering beat of her heart, the heavy sinking feeling in her gut. Her eyes feel itchy, and her throat's all swollen up. 

Something's about to go horribly wrong, she _knows_ it. 

* * *

 

 

They all take a knee in a single, fluid movement as King Rhaegar dismounts from his destrier. There is a weighted pause, where the King surveys his subjects, a pause that extends just a beat too long before the King steps up to Lord Stark, asking him to rise. 

Even as nervous as she is, Sansa isn't oblivious to the tension between Father and the King, the animosity crackling between them like lightning trapped in a bottle. It's only when Queen Lyanna dismounts from her beautiful steed and steps forward, regal and lovely, that it dissipates, a true smile lighting up the King's handsome face as he looks at his second wife. Lyanna launches herself into Ned's waiting arms with a little cry, and Catelyn watches over both of them, eyes twinkling, as she curtseys to the King, and asks after Queen Elia. 

The introductions take barely any time, with the King slapping Robb's shoulder, mussing Bran and Rickon's hair, and turning Arya's chin up to him with an approving smile. When he reaches Sansa, King Rhaegar pauses. 

"Quite the beauty, aren't you?" he rumbles, and Sansa smiles, blushing prettily at the compliment. She meets his eyes hesitantly, and her heart nearly stops at his strange, sad smile. _What's wrong?_ she wants to ask the King, all of a sudden. _How can I make it better?_

But then the King and his favored Queen are walking away, and Sansa is left feeling off-kilter, her smile dying away, ice creeping down his spine like the approach of winter. The back of her neck prickles, and Sansa turns, just a little, to the side. 

Aegon isn't there. But _Jon_ is - on a horse as restless and fiery as Bran had promised, his hair pulled back ruthlessly like a Northerner's, dark stubble along his firm jaw. His shoulders are broad under the dark, wolf-pelt cloak her wears, straps of dark leather crossing over his chest. The silvery sunlight bleaches the color out of his skin, casting him in monochrome, dark hair and full lips and pale eyes. 

And Sansa realizes, with a swooping sort of tension in her stomach - he's- why, he's grown rather handsome. 

She smiles at him, tentatively. And because apparently, even eight years later, Jon Targeryen is a wretched little _boy_ , he doesn't smile back. 

Sansa scowls at him, then, annoyed and nervous and just, sort of, _miserable_ , tossing her hair and turning away, and from the corner of her eye, she gleefully watches him startle and redden, nearly falling off of his horse. 

 _Princes._ Pfffft. 

* * *

 

 

"You're to marry Jaehaerys by the next mo-"

"No!" Sansa cries. "No, Mother! No, no, I won't!"

"Sansa..." Father sighs, sounding tired and _awfully_ disappointed, in the way he never has before. "I know this isn't what you wanted-"

"I'm supposed to marry Aegon! I'm supposed to be his Queen, and give him silver-haired babies! Please, please, it's all I've ever wanted!"

Father's jaw tightens briefly. "Aegon," he repeats stonily, voice devoid of inflection. "You want to marry-"

"Please, Father," Sansa begs. "I don't want to marry Jon. Make Arya marry him, they both like each other better!"

Mother and Father exchange a look, before Lord Stark draws Sansa into his arms, tucking her under his chin. "I'm sorry, Sansa. I cannot defy the king. We need their assistance, for the days ahead of us."

"But I don't-"

"Hush, child," Father interrupts, firmly, drawing away from her, hands wrapped like steel bands around her arms, his face as cold and unforgiving as the statues of the crypts. "This is your duty. Your marriage will keep the North safe, and we need safety more than anything now. Winter is coming."

Sansa has never hated the Stark words more. 

* * *

 

 

"So."

Jon shoves his hands in his pockets, propped up against a weirwood, staring back at her grimly. "So," he replies. His voice has changed too, Sansa realizes, with an embarrassing little jolt of surprise, deep and rough and warm. A little like Father's. 

If it hadn't been for his eyes, a pale Targaryen violet, Sansa thinks he would have looked perfect here, in his leathers and sword belt, under a canopy of the heart tree's blood-red leaves, surrounded by early snowfall. 

"Do you want this?" she asks, and Jon frowns, a little. But it's off into the middle distance, and- oh. Is that just how he looks when he thinks? Good _gods_ , he has an angry face. 

When he looks back at Sansa, he levers himself upright, stepping towards to her, and this close up, Sansa can pick out the grey flecks in his eyes. It takes everything in her to glare back at him defiantly. To not step away. 

"Do _you_?" he asks her, and Sansa's gaze drops to his mouth as he speaks. His lips look soft, and full... pretty, almost. Sansa wonders absently if he's kissed many girls, if there are women in the capital who know how those lips feel, and the swooping sensation in her stomach returns with a vengeance, setting her heart quicker, thrumming in her chest like a frightened dove. 

She shrugs, and looks back up at him. When she catches him staring at her lips too, she can't help the little curl of a smile that creeps onto her face. He may not like her, but he _does_ think she's pretty. 

That's something, isn't it?

She steps a little closer, too, and Jon's eyes widen, darting up, black ringed with thin circles of violet. When she presses a kiss to his cheek, brushing the corner of his soft, full mouth, Sansa imagines for a moment that he stops breathing. 

"Maybe I do," she replies softly, as his lips part, shocked and- and _something,_ eyes darkening, the backs of his fingers brushing her hand. 

She returns quicker than she came, a bright, shy smile dawning on her face as she scurries away, heat unfurling through her body, rushing right down to her toes. 

* * *

 

 

The first time they kiss, it is before both their families, by the heart tree of the godswood, the fresh snow damping all the sound around them, a white cocoon of fragile silence building with each drift. 

When they kiss, his lips are soft, and he tastes tart and electric, like aged Arbor gold. His lips are softer than she imagined, gentler, and he impatiently tugs off his glove before cupping the side of her face, dipping down to kiss her again, feathering soft kisses until her mouth opens under his, and he swallows the gasp escaping her lips.

They part only when Catelyn coughs delicately, her eyes bright with amusement.

Jon abruptly steps awayy from her, eyes wide as if he can't believe himself, and Sansa smiles, hesitantly, reaching forward to brush the snow from his hair. His eyes darken at her touch, and in full view of their witnesses, he bows his neck to make it easier for her. When their eyes meet again, there is something strangely vulnerable about his face, a soft stillness about his eyes.

 _This_ is how he smiles, Sansa thinks, holding back her shiver with a ruthless force of will, holding back the urge to kiss him, again and again, until they're both breathless with it. A fierce, possessive heat swims through her veins, as they lace their fingers together, and Sansa wants to keep this newfound knowledge all to herself, forever and ever - that _this_ is how Jon Targaryen _really_ smiles.

With his eyes. 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> work title from 'new religion' by the heydaze.  
> on tumblr @dropofrum, where i mostly cry about kit harington's ridiculous face. join me! :D


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